1. Field of the Invention
Aspects of the present invention generally relate to an image forming apparatus, an information processing method, and a program.
2. Description of the Related Art
A multifunction peripheral is conventionally discussed, which is obtained by integrating a copying machine with facsimile, scanner, and printer functions. The multifunction peripheral can associate business processing based on a paper subject using the copying machine and a facsimile with processing of a document computerized on a personal computer. More specifically, the multifunction peripheral can scan a paper document and send data of the paper document to the personal computer and send a document received by the facsimile to the personal computer with image data as it is without printing the document. In addition, many procedures and processing after the paper document and the facsimile received document are computerized are expected to be associated with each other and automatically preformed.
Such a multifunction peripheral is expected to cooperatively perform various functions and executes a plurality of operations and processes as a series of processing flows. For example, an image forming apparatus is discussed which can store a plurality of output setting data pieces (process definition files) for setting an output form, form an image in the output form according to the selected output setting data, and output the image (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-83263). An image forming apparatus is discussed which can perform settings of sending to a facsimile or to a personal computer connected to a network, a setting of a scanner, and a setting of association of processing, and associate a plurality of types of processing with each other (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-287861).
In the process definition files for performing sending to the facsimile or to the personal computer connected to the network, a number of a connection destination, a path of a sending storage destination, authenticated user information, and a file name are set in advance. By previously setting information in the process definition file, the labor of input when a user executes the process definition file may be omitted, and the user convenience can be increased.
Because the sending processing of an image to the facsimile machine or to the personal computer connected to the network is influenced by network traffic, and possibly requires much time, it is general that the sending processing of the image is asynchronously performed in a background. Therefore, an image forming apparatus manages a sending processing result of the background as a sending history and provides a function for confirming the sending history to allow a user to confirm the sending result (see Japanese Patent Application No. 2005-247773).
However, when a mistaken setting value is stored in the process definition file, or authentication information of the personal computer of the sending storage destination is changed, the sending in the background is executed with the mistaken setting value as it is. In such a case, as long as the setting value is not confirmed by the function for confirming the sending history, the processing is repeatedly executed using the setting value during the previous execution without being noticed, and the failure may be repeated. At the same time, it is difficult to easily specify the cause of the failure.